Why does your content need to stay in your classroom?
As a student teacher, I had the opportunity to visit numerous schools for a day to get a feel for their school culture. At one high school, my team entered the building to find bare walls, in the halls and even in the classrooms. Our description of this building: Simply Sad!
Since that very valuable lesson, I always posted student work in the hallways outside my classroom. Then it dawned on me. Why just post the student work? Why not create “Content Immersion” for all of the students in my building? It works for foreign languages, right? Why not Social Studies? Or Math… Science… ELA…
So, next came my Walking Tours, Centers Activities, Archeological Digs and more. I started off in the early fall with my Renaissance Walking Tours in my World History classes, my Reconstruction Road to Rights in U.S. History, and the U.S. and Canada Stations in Geography. After finishing these activities in class, I transferred the materials outside the classroom just above the lockers in my hall adding samples of student work from each culminating activity. Next unit, I moved a bit further down the hall. And the gallery walk continued! By spring (and testing season), students throughout the building were able to see all of the lessons we learned in our classes.
What could be better to reinforce content, review entire year content, and set-up our students for long term retention. Oh, yes, and for testing. 🙂
Michele
That's awesome, Michele! Did it catch on?
Pam
Desktop Learning Adventures
Some teachers followed suit, so we always had halls filled with great student work and content materials. It was a very creative school, too, so student work was always excellent!